A Few Hours Before Shura's Honour
Gwidion had prepared everything for Shura’s trial for the Armour. It amazed him still that the Spanish young one had travelled all the way from his Spain of birth to Greece and then back to Spain looking for a goddess he could understand so little about. Shura, Gwidion thought as he put the water from the sacred well next to the oil that symbolised the gods of old, was still in awe at how easy people can believe in that which they don’t know. For Shura, though he acknowledged the goddess, she was a total stranger. He really didn’t know her.
They had talked for endless sessions for many a month and a night. Shura always asked the same things. Who was Nemui? Who was Morgaine? Why was the goddess human if she was divine? And Athena? Wasn’t she the real goddess then? Gwidion remembered Shura’s perplexed stare and grinned, bringing the old cane of the Merlin and put it in its place, next to the entrance to the grove.
The water and the wine represented what was human and what was divine respectively. They can mingle yet one can always taste the wine and the water separately, Gwidion was thinking. Shura in his youth couldn’t fathom yet the need one had for the other. During those nights and days he tried to make Shura see that Athena and Nemui, the Lady of the Lake, were one and the same. They both were representations of what humankind needed and in that way, they complemented each other. He would do it, Gwidion assured himself. Shura’s soul and cosmos did know the truth. They had never excluded Nemui of their meditations and had never abandoned Athena. Shura’s own divinity was reaching out for his humanity. And he prayed for the other not to fail.
The guardian of the Pyrenees temple walked from the Sacred Grove to the small room where Shura had been locked in for seven years in the outmost meditation; eating nothing but the fine potions created to open his senses. The man was separated from the other ones so that his mind was clear and ready to open and become one with his cosmos. The Merlin had come to him, old Taliesin had reached him in his meditation and had spoken to him. Viviane, Morgaine, Nemui, all of them also came with him. They had told him of Cerridwen and how she had told them what they wanted from him. Gwidion knew it by just looking at Shura’s face—however, despite the background in which Shura was growing, the old gods of the Greeks—never had Athena spoken to him.
Yet, Shura knew better. It had been Athena who had called him back in his childhood and had whispered in his ear that she needed him. the Capricorn apprentice always felt proud of that, much more after a night with Arthur, his Master, had mentioned how fortunate he’d been. Gwidion, being just a bit older but more educated in the language and traditions of the fairy people, could never understand. Arthur, the Capricorn Saint had tried to explain it to him for months. His Master couldn’t understand either that they, Shura and Gwidion didn’t understand each other on the matter and Shura didn’t complain. Arthur had grown believing the same things Gwidion believe. He had even been called Arthur himself!
It was his time of meditation, Shura reckon and told himself he had to get a grip and try to understand, otherwise he would fail. What had happened, he thought as he sat in the centre of the room again, was that Gwidion and he believed in different Goddesses. Gwidion respected the representation of his own, and in the same way he loved her, and this thought made Shura’s heart jolt with joy. Athena was to be born soon, and he was to be a witness of a miracle of the gods. He would protect her and give his life to her and for her if necessary.
“Shura.” Arthur said while he entered the place and looked for a few mats to make a seat with them in front of his apprentice.
“Yes, Master?” the young one said and looked at him tiredly.
“Stop fighting, Shura.” The man said matter-of-factly, with a hint of sadness in his voice, “It’s like you haven’t learnt anything from me at all.” He ended.
The apprentice hurried to apologise, but Arthur stopped him with a move of his hand.
“I know what you’re going through. I grew up believing in the Lady of the Lake and the Goddess and then it was Athena who called me to serve her and here I am…trying to put this weight on your shoulders and you still can’t understand what this all is about.”
“But Master…”
“Understand my faithful one, that we are always the same. We were at the beginning, we still are, and will be the same at the end. I’ve lived this life many times already, and so have you, and everyone else.
“The name of the Goddess is not important, for she is the Goddess herself. She called you using the same name she used to call me, but we’re training in a place where another name is worshiped.
“Excalibur belongs to the Lady, but serves Athena. Names, only that. The Goddess will always take the shape you want to give her. How do you pretend to use Excalibur if you don’t believe in its purpose? If you continue to separate that from whom it came”
“Master!” Shura said. This time fear really took him over. The severity in his Master’s voice made him tremble. Failing hadn’t been a possibility until now. What if he couldn’t make it? “Why now?”
“Why not?”
Shura meant to say something but his voice faltered and made him withdraw in his attempts.
“Shura, when you enter the grove, let your cosmos guide you. Let yourself go with that which will be told. Allow Excalibur to give you the final lesson.” Arthur said approaching Shura and fixing his cloak on his shoulders, noticing how he was sweating heavily. “Let the Goddess, whatever her name is be there with you.”
Shura nodded, unsure of what was ahead of him, but certain of his heart. Arthur embraced him and left the room, after making sure, his apprentice was getting ready to get back into meditation.
“I’m sorry, Arthur.” Gwidion said standing in front of the room.
Arthur didn’t say anything. Gwidion and Shura loved each other profoundly, had been friends since the first time they arrived at the sanctuary in the Pyrenees and had always been together despite their differences. But they had this strong will in them. That part of the human soul and heart that made people fight for what they believe with such strength that nothing else mattered. Yet, Gwidion had already walked the path Shura was about to undertake.
“You go to your own meditation, Gwidion.” Arthur said, maintaining his composure. “Shura’s trial is in a few more hours.”
“Will he be ready?”
“He’s always been ready for her.” Arthur responded and passed the other man; he also had things to attend.
Now the friends had to learn that which was needed, for one was the other’s support, Arthur thought. The House of the Sacred Sea-Goat was the one who had nourished the god of gods, the one who believed in them under any circumstance. Shura had it in himself, he just needed the final push to stop dividing what couldn’t be divided. Arthur left with that thought in him and prepare himself for the last ceremony he’d ever perform as the Capricorn Master. The old trees were waiting for him, welcoming him to go back to his slumber after he left his armour there.
It was the time for a new Saint.
Ariadne, March 10, 2007